TIPS60 - The importance of having disability insurance

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on disability insurance. I'm John Harrington. Disability insurance both short-term disability and long-term disability is something that you should have as a part of your kind of business package of insurance as a photographer. Frankly, for any business where you have the option you should take disability insurance. Should you become disabled for three weeks, a month, six months, or a year, having disability insurance allows for you to have an ongoing stream of income from that insurance policy while you're recuperating, while you're recovering, so that you can get back to work. So that you don't have to actually sell-off assets in order to pay your bills and just generally lets you stay within the house that you have you know, other accommodations, things to provide for your family. Having disability insurance, comparable to long term care insurance, but just kind of a different flavor is something you should look into. Talk to your accountant about the tax deductability of it, but it's not that much and generally speaking it's less than $100 a month.

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TIPS60 - Maintaining your independence

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts about maintaining your independence. I'm John Harrington. Now when I say maintaining in your independence I'm not talking about having working an employee or working for one particular corporation I'm really talking about not getting into discussions with your clients that could end up causing you to not work for them again because they don't like your political leanings. Now we're based here in Washington, DC and you know there's democrats, republicans and then there's a few independents. I strongly encourage you, at least when you're dealing with political issues, to not be discussing the hot-button topic items of the day at least not in a situation where you're taking a position because it really could be contrary to your clients. We work with democrat clients, republican clients, and yes occasionally independents, but really stay away from having those conversations with clients unless you really know them well and you have a relationship with them outside of your work environment. It just really doesn't bode well for you to have those types of conversations for long-term success in this field.

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TIPS60 - Charging a "Sitting Fee" for the Family Portrait

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on family portraits and sitting fees. I'm John Harrington. We love doing portraits, with a couple, with the whole family, where we get to sit down and talk to them about how they would like to have this timeless moment with either, just a couple or an entire family memorialized, because it really is going to become a family heirloom. So when we do that and the time that we invest in sitting down with them and talking to them the time that we spend actually taking the picture, we do charge a sitting fee for and it's important. Sitting fees can be as little as you know $200 to as much as $500 when you're working with a couple. It locks in your time. It does compensate you for your time working with them beforehand and also when you there on the day of the shoot, taking those pictures. If, after the fact, the couple or the family doesn't like any of the pictures they still have to pay for the sitting fee, but if they do like their pictures then that's when they have to end up paying for the enlargement.

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TIPS60 - How to upsell prints for Family Portraits.

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on helping your client select the right size family portrait after you've done the photography. I'm John Harrington. Now, when you sit down with a client and talk to them about what size do want, you really shouldn't be talking in sizes, 8x10, 11x14, 16x20 because in most people's mind 8x10 is as large as they need. So I would encourage you to use sizes like desk size, small wall size, medium wall size, large wall size. That really helps the client understand where the picture's going to go, helps you understand what they're looking for and gets everybody away from this 8x10 figure that nobody seems to want to go above. Sometimes you can bring a portrait that you've done for somebody else into a home and show it up on a wall for the client to see how that size would look in their home and help them decide based upon size commensurate with the wall and not just based upon the numbers.

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TIPS60 - Administrative fees as a tool to encourage timely payment

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on administrative fees. I'm John Harrington. We deal with a lot of clients who may not be paying in thirty days or even sixty days or gosh, even ninety days. The problem is that all of our vendors require thirty day turnaround. As such, we've implemented and have been using successfully for about twenty years an administrative fee where we pre-bill the client a 10% surcharge and allow them to take it as a discount if they pay on time. This is also a great opportunity, when a client says, ""Hey,I'm a non-profit, what can you do?"" You can say, ""Well we'll give you a 10% discount if you pay on time."" We always pre-bill these administrative fees, however, because unlike the electric company, we can generally not be adding on an administrative fee after the fact to the next bill, because that really doesn't work that way in the client relationship that we have. So administrative fees are a great solution for helping you keep your bills paid on time.

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PDN's PhotoPlus Expo - 30 Years and Counting

This year marks the 30th Anniversary of the PhotoPlus Expo, which takes place in the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. There slogan this year is "Honoring the Past, Envisioning the Future", and it's quite appropriate for an event as storied as this. Each year tens of thousands of professional photographers, those that aspire to be professional, and yes, on Saturday, the weekend-warriors make it out to see the latest and greatest in what is out there for photographers to better be in business.

There are some that suggest that everything they need to know or learn about when it comes to technology, class-style learning, and so on, can be garnered from online resources. Yet, as connected as we are, the PhotoPlus Expo really delivers an excellent signal-to-noise ratio that cuts through all the posturing and gives you a hands-on experience like you can't get many other places.

There are many vendors that I find that I never would have, save for the opportunity to walk the aisles and discover interesting things. Here's one.

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PhotoFlashDrive.com is a really cool vendor that lets you deliver customized USB drives with your logo, along with customized packaging. One that piqued my interest was the crystal drive that really is slick. Here's one of their displays.



The seminars are another great place to get that hands-on connection that YouTube and Vimeo just can't give you. Make your way down to Javits if you're here in town. If not, it's an inexpensive bus-ride or quick train trip into town.

Your future will thank you.

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TIPS60 - On Quickbooks - Professional Photographers Expense Categories

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on how to best set up your Quickbooks software for use as a photographer. I'm John Harrington. Setting up your Quickbooks properly is critical to understanding your business how it's running, where the money is going, where it's coming from, and how to best manage it. I can't stress enough the importance of doing this. Setting it up properly makes sure that your expense categories and the chart of accounts are correct. PPofA Professional Photographers of America has a really great resource, if you simply Google PPofA Quickbooks categories or follow the link below, you'll get there, there's a whole host of information on how to set up your Quickbooks. It's a really great resource and checking it out, making sure that your system is set up to a standard to make sure that all your finances are right really will set you apart, make your accountant happy, and really let you understand how your business is running.

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